Mike Schur on Brooklyn Nine-Nine: "Comedy Is the Most Subjective Art Form in the World"

Mike Schur said it plainly: "Comedy is the most subjective art form in the world. There is no other art form where one group of people can say that's…" — and Premier Guide Miami was in the room when it happened.

On September 3, 2013, FOX hosted a press conference call with Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Andy Samberg and show creators Mike Schur and Dan Goor ahead of the series premiere on Tuesday, September 17 at 8:30/7:30 Central on FOX. Below are Mike Schur's key exchanges from the call. Premier Guide Miami's Daedrian McNaughton was among the journalists on the call.

Why did a cop comedy feel like the right setting for this show?

When Dan and I first started thinking of ideas for shows, we started talking about the idea of doing a cop comedy, and we pretty quickly realized that there hadn't been a half-hour cop comedy in a while. And in this day and age where there are 10 million shows about every genre, every setting, every location that is possibly imaginable by the human brain, that made it seem like kind of an exciting challenge. We were both fans of Barney Miller and we have fond memories of it, and just the more we talked about it the more it seemed like something that, at least in the half-hour network comedy world, was at least somewhat unexplored territory.

Why is it so difficult to make a quality sitcom that doesn't just appeal to the lowest common denominator?

Comedy is hard. Comedy pilots are almost impossible. It's really, really hard to make a good comedy pilot, and partly that is because characters aren't funny until you know who they are. And comedy pilots are trying in 20 minutes to introduce you to people, to explain who they are, where they are, what they are doing, what their motivations are, their dreams, their hopes, their desires, their fears — and then make a bunch of jokes about those things. It is just really hard. The story that emerges constantly is: show X was the lowest rated, lowest testing pilot in the history of the universe, and then look, it became an amazing show. That is true of Cheers and it's true of Seinfeld and it's true of The Office. It's because it's very, very hard to find people funny before you know who they are.

What is the future of comedy?

Comedy is the most subjective art form in the world. There is no other art form where one group of people can look at something and say that's the most brilliant thing I've ever seen in my life and another group of people can look at it and say, that is the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life. That's what makes comedy great — there is room for everybody. No matter what flavor you like your comedy, there are 100 shows making that kind of comedy. So I think the future of comedy is that there is going to be a lot of it, and as a comedy writer, I wholeheartedly approve of that future.

How do you maintain the momentum of having such a strong pilot?

Cocaine. We do a lot of cocaine. Well — you trust in the cast and you trust in the directors and you trust in the writing staff. If you worry about things like are we maintaining our momentum, then you are kind of dead because the only thing you can control as you go along in a TV show that requires possibly 22 or more episodes in a year is: is this one good? And as long as you can say, 'Alright, this one's good, move onto the next one,' that's enough. If you start worrying about any peripheral issue or metaphysical issue about momentum or the zeitgeist or the nature of the shifting sands of comedy in the universe, you're just going to spiral until you collapse into a puddle. So all we do is we focus on what's in front of us and we try to make every script as good as it can be.

On the central dynamic between Jake and Captain Holt:

When Dan and I first started conceiving of the characters, we had this detail for Jake that he was the kind of kid in high school that bragged to his friends and would say, 'I didn't even study for that test and I got a B.' And the idea was that Holt comes along and says, 'Hey, you should study and get an A.' That was the essential dynamic of the two characters.

On Captain Holt being gay:

Our intention is to treat it much the way that we would treat him having a heterosexual marriage. That being said, it obviously informs his backstory and his perspective, and that is a backstory and a perspective that plays in multiple episodes going forward.

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